QUICK AND EASY WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR SITE

Find and Fix Broken Links and Other Errors

There are a number of online services that can check your site for problems. You can set these to run automatically on a schedule, and to send you a report. The checkers can do various things, from checking links to spell checking and HTML checking. Most of these services provide free demo reports, by the way—they’ll check a few pages, maybe even 100, on your site and send you the report so you can see what you’ll get when you sign up.

LinkAlarm: http://LinkAlarm.com/

Doctor HTML and RxHTMLPro: http://www2.imagiware.com/

NetMechanic: http://www.NetMechanic.com/

Web Site Garage: http://websitegarage.netscape.com/

Tucows Library: http://www.tucows.com/

Dr. Watson: http://watson.addy.com/

And more ...

http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Data_Formats/HTML/Validation_and_Checkers/

Make Sure Your Site Looks Good in All Browsers

One of the biggest frustrations for anyone creating Web pages is the fact that what looks fine in one browser may look terrible in another. It’s an unfortunate fact that not all browsers are equal. How, then, do you avoid problems? Really the only way to be sure is to check your work in different browsers. Which? Well, there’s the problem. There are so many different browsers, versions of browsers, and operating systems, that there’s no way you’ll be able to check all the possibilities. NetMechanic at http://www.NetMechanic.com/ has set up a service called Browser Photo. This service tests your pages on 14 different browser/operating system combinations, a combination of AOL, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, WebTV, and Opera (including 11 different Explorer and Navigator versions), a variety of different screen sizes, and three different operating systems: PC, iMac, and WebTV.

Add a Heading or Tag Line to Your Name Plate

The name of a product or a company is rarely in itself a compelling marketing message. Therefore you should hardly ever head a Web page with the name of the product or company. Instead, craft a compelling statement of the benefit someone gets out of buying the product or doing business with the firm. After that hook you can introduce the identity of the Web page’s sponsor.

 Include a Guarantee and a Privacy Statement

                        

If you’re selling something on your site, a guarantee will help take away the feeling of risk. If you’re a smaller, relatively unknown company you need to establish credibility fast. Offering a guarantee will increase orders more than it will cost in returned items. You also should include a privacy statement when asking visitors to provide information, namely their e-mail address